Looking for that unique gift for someone on your list who seems to have everything? Instead of taking the big-box, “I bought it because of the label” approach, go local and give something that will show you care.
Here are our top picks for creative, local gift ideas:
Baskets of food and baskets of fun
Pick a gourmet food basket from Donnolo’s Florist (100 Wallace Ave., Downingtown). They have lots of high-quality products, including local soups (Churchy’s), oodles of chocolates, jams (Dilworthtown Inn), crackers, cheese, dipping sauces, mustards, chips and pretzels, homemade cookies, coffees, teas, Twin Brook wines, delicious Kog Hill Wine from Lancaster County and much more. These items can be used as stocking stuffers, and they’re great for holiday gift exchanges. Customers can build a custom basket or choose from the many beautiful baskets in their showroom or on www.donnolos.com. Gift baskets run between $35 and $100, depending on the size and contents. Orders can be placed online, by phone at 610-269-6656 (They have a 24 hour phone that even goes to the owner’s house), by fax (610-269-5136), or by stopping by the store. They have a UPS pick-up every day, and you can even get flowers for your holiday decorating while you’re there.
Need a gift for the ultimate beer lover?
Release your inner beer snob by sporting an Iron Hill Brewery signature shirt that says, “Our beer snobs can beat up your wine snobs”. Visit www.ironhillbrewery.com or visit any of their stores (3 W. Gay St., West Chester or 130 E. Bridge St., Phoenixville) to pick up their shirts. The newly released Winter Wheat Wine-Oh Gift Package is $30 and includes one bottle, two 18-ounce signature glasses and a beer tote. Or give the gift that just keeps giving: An Iron Hill Mug Club Membership! For $35 a year, you get an Iron Hill Mug, invitations to members-only events, you can get a 22-ounce beer for the price of a pint each time you visit, and you gete a $25 gift card each time you spend 300 points (it’s $1 a point and you get 200 initially). Also, customers receive a $20 bonus card for every $75 purchased in gift cards.
The McKenzie Brew House Craft Beer Basket is also a perfect pick for the beer connoisseur in your life. The restaurant and brewery’s seasonal brew gift features three hand-crafted beers brewed by award-winning head brewer Ryan Michaels and assistant brewer Gerard Olson. Festively packaged in a red ice bucket, the $39 gift includes two McKenzie pint glasses, special food and brew pairing suggestions, and two Sunday Passports packed with deals and discounts. The basket includes Saison Vautour, their Belgian-style farmhouse ale that’s fermented and aged in wine barrels and is a Great American Beer Festival gold medal winner for the past three out of four years. Also included in the gift pack is the St. Romain Strong, an East Coast-style barley wine that was aged 17 months in French oak wine barrels, and the Oer Faute, the strong, dark lager aged over a year in American oak. The Craft Beer Baskets are for sale at the restaurant’s Malvern (610-296-2222) and Chadds Ford (610-361-9800) locations. For more information, visit www.mckenziebrewhouse.com.
Whether you are loading up on gifts for the beer geeks in your life or you have acclaimed Golden Monkey fan dying for a “Respect the Monkey” t-shirt, visit Victory Brewery’s online store or at the brewpub (420 Acorn Lane, Downingtown) for all of the brewery’s gear. Check out their exclusive t-shirts, glassware and more, or snag a growler in the brewpub — any brew fanatic will go giddy over you claiming this sort of victory over gift-giving this year.
Exton Beverage has the largest selection of sixtels in the county, so if you are looking to surprise a beer fanatic, head over to marvel in their extreme selection. A sixtel is a 1/6 of a keg, equal to 2 1/3 cases of beer. This distributor sells them in more than 250 varieties and they are 95 percent craft beers. What does this mean for you and your gift-giving? It means that you can allow others to look like a beer rock star in their homes by having a variety of craft beers on tap. When you use a sixtel, you end up saving $15 to $20 each time you buy beer. But if you’re loading up on sixtels, make sure your gift-receiver have a home system, which can be easily on hand if you convert an old mini-fridge into your own tap system Exton Beverage is willing to fill you in on this process. Visit Exton Beverage at 310 E. Lincoln Highway, online at www.extonbeverage.com, or call them at 610-363-7020.
Brewing your own beer is a creative release and the ultimate science experiment. Head over to the Artisan Homebrew (128 E Lancaster Ave., Downingtown) to pick up all the supplies you need to make beer or wine. The staff is very knowledgeable, so feel free to stop in, call 610-873-HOPS (4677) or visit www.artisanhomebrew.com for details. For further guidance, check out the Brewers United for Zany Zymurgy home brew club in West Chester at www.buzzhomebrewclub.com. They meet once a month and offer brewing advice (and tastings) for brewers of all skill sets.
Something for the wine fan
The Brandywine Valley Wine Trail hosted their Holiday Open House on Saturday, Dec. 4 and Sunday, Dec. 5. Wineries waived tasting fees and offered delicious foods, music was provided by local musicians and carolers, and holiday gift baskets were for sale — hope you didn’t miss out. For a schedule of events and directions to the wineries, visit www.bvwinetrail.com. (They’re still holiday-appropriate, booming with all your wine-loving gift needs.)
Consider buying a gift card for an intimate tasting at Black Walnut’s Tasting Room (260 Bridge St., Phoenixville) or Kreutz Creek (44 E. Gay St., West Chester). These tasting rooms offer a relaxing atmosphere with live music, where you can enjoy a delicious glass of wine. You can also pick up a bottle or wine accessories.
Brush up on your cooking skills
Know someone who always wanted to go to cooking school but didn’t have the time? The Kitchen Workshop (21 Plank Ave, Paoli) offers a variety of three-hour cooking classes like “Perfect Pot Pies,” “Roasting 101,” “Entertaining on A Budget” and more. Classes are $54 and include hands-on instruction, a copy of all the recipes taught in class, food, beverages and a glass of wine. View their full class schedule at www.kitchen-workshop.com. They also have a large selection of used cookbooks for $5. Give the gift of fun and a new experience. If you buy four gift certificates, you get one free.
Mushrooms of Chester County
Nothing says Chester County better than the beloved mushroom. The Mushroom Cap (114 W. State St., Kennett Square) has all your mushroom needs: A “Mushroom of the Month Club,” mushroom soup, marinade, mustard, and mushroom clothing to show off your love for mushrooms. The “Celebrating 25 Years! Mushroom Festival Cookbook” is only $12 and includes mushroom recipes from generations of mushroom growers, chefs and restaurants in the region. While you are there (or online), pick up a bag of Snack N Shrooms, an exclusive treat that can only be found at the Mushroom Cap. These tasty dried treats can be eaten alone or used to cook, and come in two-ounce bags for $8.50. Shop online at www.themushroomcap.com, or give them a call at 610-444-8484.
Give local cheese, please
Chester County has its own cheese artisan alliance, which includes eight local cheese makers who produce cheese made from raw cow’s milk, goat’s milk, and even sheep’s milk. Load up on an assortment of local cheeses from Birchrun Hills, Amazing Acres, Highland Farm, September Farm and others by visiting their holiday open houses and farm stands at local farmers’ markets. For a complete list, visit www.chestercountycheese.org. What’s even better than a basket of cheese hunks and wedges? A membership to a local cheese CSA! Yellow Springs Farm is one of the nearby cheese makers who offer a yearly cheese share. Other delicious cheese-inspired gifts available at Yellow Springs include cheese platters, goat cheese truffles, goat milk caramel and goat milk soap. For details, visit www.yellowspringsfarm.com.
For the foodie who has everything
We recommend tickets to the 9th Annual “A Taste of Phoenixville,” happening Jan. 20, 2011 at Franklin Commons in Phoenixville. You’ll make any local food-lover gush when you present them with tickets to the biggest food event of the year. For only $60 per ticket (or $100 for two), you can give someone you love an evening to sample some of the best local fare in this foodie haven. The best part? It’s a truly local effort, with proceeds supporting the Good Samaritan Shelter, a nonprofit that provides emergency and transitional housing (and other critical services) to homeless men in the Phoenixville area. For more information or to purchase tickets for “A Taste of Phoenixville,” visit www.TasteOfPhoenixville.com.
Give the gift of someone’s next meal
This year, in lieu of a gift, consider making a donation to a local food bank. The Chester County Food Bank‘s mission to make sure no one goes without a meal in Chester County and they distribute 1,000,000 pounds of food to 65 organizations each year. One in eight people will go without a meal and an estimated 70,000 people go hungry every night in Chester County. To learn more about them and how to make a donation, visit www.chestercountyfoodbank.org.
Something for health-conscious sippers
Pureblend Tea — the organic, fair trade and local whole-leaf tea collection from Kari Dandrea of West Chester — is your key to better living, allowing you to sip your way through steamy specialty blends and loose-leaf wonders like Pumpkin Patch Chai, Nettle Leaf Detox, Sangria, Red and Green Rooibus, and Yerba Mate. Kari also packs an array of fine-tuned Kombucha and Japanese Matcha that will have the tea lovers on your shopping list swooning. To stock up on her various assortments, visit www.pureblendtea.com.
Celebrate on the road!
The West Chester Recreation Department is offering eye-catching entertainment options. Take advantage of their upcoming journey to New York City to attend the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, offered on Dec. 4 and 5. With a cost of $165 per person, guests will nab killer tickets to the show (orchestra seats in the row B to E, section 200), a snack and transportation. The bus departs from West Chester Muncipal Building at 401 E. Gay St. at 7:30 a.m., arriving in New York City for showtime at 11:30 a.m.Also available from the Recreation Department are tickets to “Disney on Ice: Toy Story 3” on Dec. 29 at the Well Fargo Center. Catch the bus at 9:30 a.m. and attend the kid-friendly show at 11 a.m. For details on either show, or other trips, call 610-436-9010.
Dinner and a holiday classic show
The holidays are not complete without seeing “The Nutcracker.” The Brandywine Ballet will be performing the classic ballet on Dec. 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, and 19 at the Emile K. Asplundh Concert Hall, West Chester University. Tickets are $22 to $37. Enjoy a pre-show three-course dinner at Avalon Restaurant (312 S. High St., only two blocks away from the theater). Warm up in front of a wood-burning stone fireplace during your sophisticated night out. The dinner upgrade is $35 per person and tickets can be purchased online or by calling the box office. Consider having a spot of tea and assorted goodies with Clara, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and other characters at noon on Dec. 11 and 18 at WCU’s Philip Memorial Library (29 W. Rosedale Ave.). Tickets are $25 per person (in addition to a performance ticket) for The Nutcracker Tea, and can be purchased at www.brandywineballet.com or by calling the box office at 610-696-2711.
Gift-giving for the anti-shopper
If your male counterpart dreads the thought of having to shop, he’s in luck! He’s not off the hook, but he can moan and complain with fellow male anti-shoppers on Wednesday, Dec. 15, during the annual Men’s Night Out in downtown West Chester. Gents will meet at Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant at 5 p.m. for a pre-shopping happy hour, and then, around 6 pm, head out to West Chester boutiques, including Penwick Design, Ruby Slippers, Jane Chalfant, Sunset Jewelers and Feminique Boutique, enduring the pain of Christmas shopping with some brotherly love.
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